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I remember senior military saying that more troops would be needed to secure Iraq after Saddam's fall. The Bush neocons told us "not so" our troops will be "greeted as hero's" and to an extent that was true, but without troops to prevent looting and maintain order the good will evaportated. With 20/20 hindsight it is now clear the professional military was correct and the neocons wrong.

Anyone so shortsighted as to regard hindsight as infallible also wouldn't understand that there's no perfect alternative. We could have dumped another 200,000 troops into Iraq; that may very well have set off Iraqis unifying against what would be viewed as an occupation force. You don't get to choose your consequences, merely your actions.

Any real world choice involves not perfect and imperfect alternatives, but flawed versus flawed. Those who employ 20/20 hindsight reveal their ignorance about real world decision making. Perfect decision making does not allow for consequence-free results; most often you merely get to choose the negative alternatives you'd rather risk.

That's the nature of life and the nature of war. I'd be disappointed if lessons weren't learned from this action. There are, however, some lessons that only experience can teach.

When our president declared that we will treat nations that harbor terrorists the same as terrorist, I cheered, "finally! the usa was going to kick middle east a$$, I've still not forgotten the humilation of Iran during Jimmy's presidency. In fact I was ready to reenlist the momnet Jimmy declared war on Iran. But Bush never put the country on a war footing, Yasir Arafat, the biggest terrorist of them all, was untouched, Lebenon and Palistine (the mothers of all terrorist states) were untouched. It seems to me that (other then Afganistan) rather then waging war on the real terrorist states (Palestine, Syria, Iran) Bush decided to settle old family business and take out Sadam, yea Sadam needed to go but Iraq was far from being a first tier terrorist state that title goes to the 3 I mentioned plus Chechian. Now the opportunity to go after the real treat is lost. Now we will have to wait for another big attack before we have the polictical capital nesscessary to regain our allies and will. Very sad that thousands of American will have to die AGAIN.